Elsberry Aldermen vote to not renew Alliance Water Resource contract

Elsberry Alderman Bob Kindred addressed his concerns about the Alliance Water Resource contract. According to him, the city can ill afford to keep them and does not want to see them locked into another five-years.

With the hot topic of the night being water, Alderman Bob Kindred apparently felt it would be a good time to voice further concern about Alliance Water Managements contract at the Elsberry City Council Meeting on Tuesday, Sept. 11.

“The time to act is now” Kindred began. “This council should only be interested in the common welfare of its citizens, not only in age but in the future.”

According to Kindred, the contract with Alliance is a luxury the City of Elsberry can ill afford.

“My concern is solely based on finance and not personality,” Kindred said. “I feel that we could save approximately $100,000 by taking over city services ourselves. According to the contract we have with Alliance, we have to give them 90 days notice if we intend to do that.”

This past February the Infrastructure Committee was given a list of contractors to be contacted in reference to preforming the city services. However, according to Kindred the city has yet to receive any bids, which limits the time they have left to make a decision on whether or not to renew the Alliance contract.

“If we don’t give them the 90 days notice the contract is automatically renewed for five-years,” said Kindred. “I don’t want to be tied down for another five-years because we fail to notify them that we are either seeking bids or taking it over ourselves.”

The numbers Kindred based his City savings off of was the 2011 Alliance Budget, which was $592,689. However, for the sake of argument Kindred decided to use the figures based off of a $600,000 budget.

“Under the current contract Alliance receives a two to six percent increase each year; for the last several years they’ve gotten the minimum. Except one year they got ten percent,” Kindred said. “Using the lowest figure of two percent per year over the next five years it will cost [the city] approximately $662,448.”

Kindred went on to say that assuming the city saves $100,000 the first year by taking over city services, each year thereafter they would be able to reduce the savings by five percent for inflation or cost of living. According to him the city would save $100,000 in 2013, $95,000 in 2014, $90,250 in 2015, so on and so on.

“I’m not saying this is 100 percent correct, I’m just saying this is the theory,” Kindred said. “So for argument sake, lets just say I’m wrong by half that amount. It still results in a savings of approximately $226,219 over the next five-years. To me that seems significant.”

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